How to Restore the Balance of Nature
by Bundibird
Summary: Inspired by Colin and Bradley's Video Diaries. There's a spider in Arthur's bath, and it's up to the Prince to deal with it and restore the balance of nature. Borderline crackfic. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise. **

_**AN**_**: Those video diaries by the boys are hilarious. If you haven't seen them, they're on YouTube, and I highly recommend checking them out. If you have seen them, then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I hadn't planned on writing this, but I was reading Emachinescat's **_**Sesquipedalian**_** and she worked a quote from The Spider Saga (as it shall now be known) into one of the chapters, and suddenly this fic was born. So, thanks E. :)**

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**How to Restore the Balance of Nature**

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It was Merlin's startled yelp that attracted the Prince's attention.

"What is it _now,_ Merlin?" he asked, wondering if the idiot had managed to burn himself with the hot water. It wouldn't be the first time.

"There's... a spider," Merlin said, slightly breathlessly, sounding like he was still recovering from the surprise of being confronted by a hairy, eight-legged monstrosity. "A big one. In the bath."

There was a short silence, and then the Prince burst out laughing.

"Are you serious?" he asked, coming out from behind the partition, towel around his waist, incredulously amused. "A spider? _That's_ what has you shrieking like a girl?"

Merlin looked up from the bath that he had been staring at to glare vaguely at the Prince. "I didn't _shriek_. It startled me, that's all."

Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"You're afraid of a _spider_?" he drawled, coming closer and struggling not to burst out laughing all over again. He didn't manage it particularly well, and a squashed sounding snort made its way past his lips. "I knew you were a girl, Merlin, but really..."

Merlin turned to face Arthur fully, his expression peevish. "I am _not _afraid of a _spider,"_ he stated firmly.

Arthur laughed again, strolling casually up to Merlin as he spoke.

"Of course not, Merlin. That's why you shrieked like a kitchen maid who – _that_..." he cut himself off suddenly, his voice suddenly deadly serious as he peered over the lip of the bath and caught sight of the arachnid in question, "is a _big_ spider."

"I know!" Merlin responded. "I reached in to pull the bucket out of the tub and it just... fell out at me, all fangs and hair and legs... Even _you_ would have been startled."

Arthur appeared not to have heard Merlin, busy as he was frowning at the spider with the air of someone working out how to best disable an adversary.

It was a huge spider.

Hairy, long-legged and with a pair of giant fangs hanging down just under its glistening black eyes, the spider stared back evenly from its position on the wall of the bath near the floor, as though challenging the Prince to just _try_ to take it on.

"Well, it can't very well stay there," he said eventually, taking a hasty step back (which did _not_ coincide with the spider twitching its body a little higher up the wall). "And I don't want it squashed on the inside of my bath. It will have to go out the window." There was silence for a long moment, and after a while Arthur looked significantly at Merlin. "Well? Go on then."

Merlin's gaze jumped from the spider to the Prince, his eyes a little wider than usual. "Me?" he asked, sounding vaguely horrified.

Arthur pulled his gaze away from the giant black thing, a hint of a smirk on his lips in response to Merlin's obvious hesitancy.

"Of course! You're the servant here, not me."

There was a second where Merlin stared at Arthur, eyes wide as he tried to work out how to get out of this situation. Then his face calmed a little and turned a little thoughtful. Arthur narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Are you sure?" Merlin asked.

Arthur looked at him blankly. "Am I sure that you're the servant here?" he repeated, a little dryly. "Pretty sure, yeah."

"No," Merlin clarified, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Are you sure _that's_ the reason you want me to deal with it? Because I'm the servant?"

Arthur frowned at him, rather a bit confused now.

"...Yes..." he said slowly, trying to work out where Merlin was going with this.

"Really?" the servant in question pressed. "You're sure it's not because _you _don't want to do it? Because it seems like a pretty flimsy excuse, 'You're the servant'. Anyone would think..."

He let his voice trail off and Arthur's eyes widened a little as he realised what Merlin was alluding to, but the servant continued speaking before the Prince could defend himself.

"Don't worry – it's fine," Merlin said, turning around and reaching for a goblet off the table before rolling his sleeves up in preparation. "I'll deal with this, Arthur – it's alright."

"What?" Arthur asked, a bit baffled by the turn of the conversation. "No – I'm not – you're not thinking that I'm _scared_ of it, surely."

"It's fine, Arthur, really," Merlin said comfortingly, only half his attention on the Prince as he narrowed his eyes at spider as he analysed the best way to execute his attack. "Everyone has fears – it's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I am _not_ scared of a _spider,"_ Arthur announced, a hint of outrage colouring his tone.

Merlin looked away from the spider for a moment, his expression earnest as he assured the Prince. "Oh, don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

"No – I – ugh! Give me the goblet," Arthur demanded, holding his hand out.

"Arthur, really," Merlin soothed, circling the tub like a hawk while he planned his attack. "You don't have to prove anything. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I am _not,_" Arthur snapped, marching around the tub and snatching the goblet out of Merlin's hands, "_ashamed_ of anything, because there is _nothing_ to be ashamed _of._ I am _not_ afraid of a _spider_."

Merlin put up a feeble fight as Arthur wrestled the goblet away, before sighing dramatically and yielding, saying, "Ok, Sire, if it makes you feel better," and taking a polite step backwards.

Arthur threw a disgusted glare over his shoulder at Merlin, who bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from grinning and attempted to force his expression into one of utter innocence and support.

It must have worked, because Arthur turned away with a narrow-eyed scowl as he imitated what Merlin had been doing, stalking around the edge of the bath and trying to work out the best angle to go from to attack the spider.

By the look on his face, anyone would have believed that he was facing off against a thousand-strong army, not a hairy black spider sitting quietly in a bathtub.

Eventually, having worked out his plan of attack, Arthur hitched the towel higher around his hips, sparing a moment to wish he had been better attired for this battle, and reached into the tub, goblet extended and hands hesitating only momentarily.

His first attempt at scooping the spider into the goblet was rather unsuccessful, and he may or may not have jerked back reflexively when the spider darted speedily a few inches to the left (Merlin, peering over the Prince's shoulder from a safe distance, definitely _did_ jerk back, but fortunately for him the Prince was too focused on his current enemy to notice).

What was certain is that neither of them yelped at the spider's sudden movement. Not a peep. Not at all.

The second attempt at trapping the spider was more successful, but only slightly.

With a triumphant "Ha!," Arthur managed to cup the goblet over the top of the long-legged beast, the rim of the it pressed firmly against the wall of the bath and the spider trapped helplessly underneath. Unfortunately, that left Arthur leaning over the tub awkwardly, holding firm to the goblet to ensure that the spider didn't escape, with no way of getting the monster into the cup so that he could transport it to the window.

"Now what?" Merlin asked, after a rather long silence.

"Uh... Find me some paper or something. Something I can slide between the goblet and the bath so it's trapped."

Merlin quickly scurried about the room, pawing at anything and everything that may have concealed some paper that they could use against the Hairy Beast of Doom.

There was nothing.

"There's got to be _something,_ Merlin," the Prince snapped, glancing briefly away from where he had the monster trapped to glare in his servants direction. "I was going through all those reports earlier at my desk – surely there's something around!"

"I cleared them all away! They're back with the King – he needed to sign off on them. I took them to him this afternoon!"

"Of all the times for you to decide to be efficient..." Arthur growled, returning his glare to the bath, scowling furiously as he tried to work out a way around this problem.

There was another long moment of silence as Arthur glared thoughtfully and Merlin was quietly grateful it wasn't him who was in this position and silently thanked whoever had come up with reverse psychology.

Eventually, Arthur let out a defeated puff of air.

"There's nothing for it," he said, with the air of someone about to announce that the only way to defeat the enemy was by jumping off a cliff and pulling the bad guys down with them. "It's the only way."

"...What's the only way?" Merlin asked, a little concerned by the Prince's defeated tone. "...Arthur?"

Arthur wasn't listening at all, completely focussed on his task as he carefully – slowly – inched the top of the goblet away from the wall of the bath and peered from a distance through the crack.

Then, with a yell that would be better suited to a final desperate battle charge, Arthur scooped upward with the goblet and started running.

Both would later deny the events if anyone asked, but neither were exactly proud of how the next few moments played out.

Merlin leapt back with a startled yelp from where he'd been hovering over the Prince's shoulder as Arthur hollered and surged upwards, racing desperately towards the window as though the hounds of hell were on his tail.

Or as though he had a giant spider in an open goblet in his hand. You know. Either one.

Having planned this out as well as he had, Arthur was a bit startled, rather irritated and mostly concerned when he reached the window in absolute record time and found suddenly that it was shut, which was kind of a bit of a problem.

"Merlin!" he not-yelped (because Princes don't yelp). "Open the window! _Open the window!" _

Spurred by Arthur's desperate voice, Merlin surged into action, racing frantically to where the Prince was standing – shifting nervously on the balls of his feet and holding the uncovered goblet as far away from his body as possible – to fumble urgently at the latch.

But Arthur's not-panic (because Princes don't panic) was contagious, and Merlin couldn't make his hands work to open the window.

"Merlin! Get the damn window open! MERLIN! Merlin – it's crawling out of the cup. _It's crawling out of the cup!"_

And it was.

If horror movies had existed then, this would have been a scene in one.

The spider's fanged face with its glinting eyes was preceded by two of its absurdly long, hairy legs as it stretched them out purposefully slowly to hook over the rim of the goblet before raising itself up to glare over the edge.

Just by looking at its shiny black eyes, Merlin could tell it was angry.

_Really_ angry.

The kind of angry that ends with dead warlocks and dead Princes.

The kind of angry that results in identification only being possible by the use of dental records.

They had disturbed its resting place. Now, they would pay dearly.

Merlin attacked the window latch even more desperately than before, trying to ignore Arthur's panicked hollers from behind him.

"It's stuck!" he cried. "The window! I can't – it's _stuck!"_

He spun around quickly as Arthur let out a particularly loud yelp, and had just enough time to see that the spider had crawled fully out of the goblet and was dangerously close to Arthur's hand before the Prince threw the goblet away as though burnt.

The goblet skittered along the floor and the spider gripped onto it doggedly, so that it was still sitting hunched on top of the delicately etched Pendragon crest once the cup had stopped spinning, its eyes glinting furiously.

There was a long moment of silence where Arthur and Merlin stared, wide eyed, at the spider and the spider stared, wide eyed, at Arthur and Merlin.

Then it twitched, as though to race threateningly towards them, and several things happened at once.

Arthur let out yet another holler that was a strange mix of battle-cry meets terrified-yelp and launched forwards, snagging a boot as he went, and Merlin had a moment of inspiration and used Arthur's distraction to his advantage as he whispered a word and the latch on the window burst open.

"Arthur!" he yelled, throwing himself forwards and nearly falling out the window himself in his eagerness to throw it wide open. "The window! Now!"

With a roar that startled a maidservant who was walking two halls away, Arthur forgot about the boot in his hand and launched himself fearlessly (ok, so that's not _entirely_ true) at the goblet, scooping it up – spider and all – and drawing his arm back to throw it with all his strength towards the open window.

It was a magnificent throw, and Merlin squeaked and ducked out of the way as the cup went hurtling past and sailed neatly out of the room, where it seemed to hang in the air for a moment before slowly curving downwards to begin its descent.

Both Arthur and Merlin scrambled to their feet and rushed to the window to watch it fall, tumbling – almost gracefully – head over heels to land with a crash in the courtyard below (the only person in the courtyard at the time was a stableboy who was tending to one of the just-returned-from-a-hunting-trip-Lords, and both he and the horse jumped about a foot in the air at the sudden noise, but neither Arthur or Merlin noticed that).

"Is it... gone?" Merlin asked, his eyes riveted on the now-far-away goblet. That there was so sign of movement was vaguely worrying, but then – Merlin reasoned – it was highly likely that the spider hadn't survived the fall.

"Yeah. Yeah – I doubt it would have survived that drop," Arthur said, confirming Merlin's thoughts. "I'd say it's almost definitely dead. Or seriously injured, at the very least, in which case it'll be dead soon."

Merlin sagged a little (ok – a lot) in relief, distantly noticing Arthur doing the same thing.

There was a moment of companionable silence between them where both the Prince and his servant stared down out of the window at the fallen goblet which was hiding their now-or-soon-to-be-deceased foe, both of them feeling rather vindicated by their victory.

The spider had wreaked terror on their lives for a few long minutes, but in the end, it was they who had the last laugh.

Then Merlin turned to Arthur, his relieved expression melting into one of barely restrained glee.

"You managed that spider extremely well, Arthur," he praised warmly, forcing his expression to remain innocently earnest. "Especially when you consider that you're afraid of them."

As chance would have it, Gwen was walking past Arthur's chambers, a heavy load of laundry in her arms, just as the Prince's doors burst open and Merlin exploded out of them, a wild grin on his face as he fled, one of Arthur's boots flying through the air after him and crashing into the opposite wall, perfectly in time with Arthur's furious holler of "_MERLIN_!"

.

.

.

A long time later that night, Arthur lay asleep, adorably innocent in his belief that he had struck a blow to the arachnid population of Camelot.

Just outside the Prince's window, where it had managed to land after leaping wildly from the doomed goblet, a spider shifted in the dark.

.

"_And the balance is restored to nature."_

_Colin Morgan_

_._

**_AN_: Hee. That was fun. You may be thinking that our dear boys overreacted. They didn't. Trust me. That spider they faced just now? The stuff of nightmares.**

**Bundi**


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